FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE README

The FreeBSD Project

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Last modified on 2014-01-14 by hrs.

Abstract

This document gives a brief introduction to FreeBSD
10.0-RELEASE. It includes some information on how to
obtain FreeBSD, a listing of various ways to contact the FreeBSD
Project, and pointers to some other sources of
information.

1.Â Introduction

This distribution is a release of FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE, the
latest point along the 10.0-STABLE branch.

1.1.Â About FreeBSD

FreeBSD is an operating system based on 4.4 BSD Lite for
AMD64 and Intel EM64T based PC hardware (amd64),
Intel, AMD, Cyrix or NexGen “x86” based PC hardware (i386),
Intel Itanium Processor based computers (ia64),
NEC PC-9801/9821 series PCs and compatibles (pc98),
and UltraSPARCÂ® machines (sparc64). Versions
for the ARMÂ® (arm), MIPSÂ® (mips), and
PowerPCÂ® (powerpc) architectures are currently under
development as well. FreeBSD works with a wide variety of
peripherals and configurations and can be used for everything
from software development to games to Internet Service
Provision.

This release of FreeBSD contains everything you need to run
such a system, including full source code for the kernel and
all utilities in the base distribution. With the source
distribution installed, you can literally recompile the entire
system from scratch with one command, making it ideal for
students, researchers, or users who simply want to see how it
all works.

A large collection of third-party ported software (the
“Ports Collection”) is also provided to make it
easy to obtain and install all your favorite traditional UNIXÂ®
utilities for FreeBSD. Each “port” consists of a
set of scripts to retrieve, configure, build, and install a
piece of software, with a single command. Over 24,000
ports, from editors to programming languages to graphical
applications, make FreeBSD a powerful and comprehensive operating
environment that extends far beyond what's provided by many
commercial versions of UNIXÂ®. Most ports are also available as
pre-compiled “packages”, which can be quickly
installed from the installation program.

1.2.Â Target Audience

This release of FreeBSD is suitable for all users. It
has undergone a period of testing and quality assurance
checking to ensure the highest reliability and
dependability.

2.Â Obtaining FreeBSD

FreeBSD may be obtained in a variety of ways. This section
focuses on those ways that are primarily useful for obtaining a
complete FreeBSD distribution, rather than updating an existing
installation.

2.1.Â CDROM and DVD

FreeBSD -RELEASE distributions may be ordered on CDROM or DVD
from several publishers. This is frequently the most
convenient way to obtain FreeBSD for new installations, as it
provides a convenient way to quickly reinstall the system if
necessary. Some distributions include some of the optional,
precompiled “packages” from the FreeBSD Ports
Collection, or other extra material.

A list of the CDROM and DVD publishers known to the
project are listed in the “Obtaining
FreeBSD” appendix to the Handbook.

2.2.Â FTP

You can use FTP to retrieve FreeBSD and any or all of its
optional packages from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/, which is the official
FreeBSD release site, or any of its
“mirrors”.

Lists of locations that mirror FreeBSD can be found in the
FTP
Sites section of the Handbook.
Finding a close (in networking terms) mirror from which to
download the distribution is highly recommended.

Additional mirror sites are always welcome. Contact
<freebsd-admin@FreeBSD.org> for more details on
becoming an official mirror site. You can also find useful
information for mirror sites at the Mirroring
FreeBSD article.

Mirrors generally contain the ISO images generally used to
create a CDROM of a FreeBSD release. They usually also contain
floppy disk images (for applicable platforms), as well as the
files necessary to do an installation over the network.
Finally mirrors sites usually contain a set of packages for
the most current release.

3.Â Contacting the FreeBSD Project

3.1.Â Email and Mailing Lists

If you're tracking the 10.0-STABLE development efforts, you
must join the FreeBSD-STABLE mailing list, in order to
keep abreast of recent developments and changes that may
affect the way you use and maintain the system.

Being a largely-volunteer effort, the FreeBSD
Project is always happy to have extra hands willing to help—there are already far more desired enhancements than
there is time to implement them. To contact the developers on
technical matters, or with offers of help, please send mail to
the FreeBSD technical discussions mailing list.

Please note that these mailing lists can experience
significant amounts of traffic. If you
have slow or expensive mail access, or are only interested in
keeping up with major FreeBSD events, you may find it
preferable to subscribe instead to the FreeBSD announcements mailing list.

All of the mailing lists can be freely joined by anyone
wishing to do so. Visit the
FreeBSD Mailman Info Page. This will give you more
information on joining the various lists, accessing archives,
etc. There are a number of mailing lists targeted at special
interest groups not mentioned here; more information can be
obtained either from the Mailman pages or the mailing
lists section of the FreeBSD Web site.

Important:

Do not send email to the lists
asking to be subscribed. Use the Mailman interface
instead.

3.2.Â Submitting Problem Reports

Suggestions, bug reports and contributions of code are
always valued—please do not hesitate to report any
problems you may find. Bug reports with attached fixes are of
course even more welcome.

The preferred method to submit bug reports from a machine
with Internet mail connectivity is to use the send-pr(1)
command.
“Problem Reports” (PRs) submitted in this way
will be filed and their progress tracked; the FreeBSD developers
will do their best to respond to all reported bugs as soon as
possible. A list
of all active PRs is available on the FreeBSD Web site;
this list is useful to see what potential problems other users
have encountered.

Note that send-pr(1) itself is a shell script that
should be easy to move even onto a non-FreeBSD system. Using
this interface is highly preferred. If, for some reason, you
are unable to use send-pr(1) to submit a bug report, you
can try to send it to the FreeBSD problem reports mailing list.

For more information, “Writing
FreeBSD Problem Reports”, available on the FreeBSD Web
site, has a number of helpful hints on writing and submitting
effective problem reports.

4.Â Further Reading

There are many sources of information about FreeBSD; some are
included with this distribution, while others are available
on-line or in print versions.

4.1.Â Release Documentation

A number of other files provide more specific information
about this release distribution. These files are
provided in various formats. Most distributions will include
both ASCII text (.TXT) and HTML
(.HTM) renditions. Some distributions
may also include other formats such as Portable Document Format
(.PDF).

README.TXT: This file, which
gives some general information about FreeBSD as well as
some cursory notes about obtaining a
distribution.

RELNOTES.TXT: The release
notes, showing what's new and different in FreeBSD
10.0-RELEASE compared to the previous release (FreeBSD
9.2-RELEASE).

HARDWARE.TXT: The hardware
compatibility list, showing devices with which FreeBSD has
been tested and is known to work.

ERRATA.TXT: Release errata.
Late-breaking, post-release information can be found in
this file, which is principally applicable to releases
(as opposed to snapshots). It is important to consult
this file before installing a release of FreeBSD, as it
contains the latest information on problems which have
been found and fixed since the release was
created.

On platforms that support bsdinstall(8) (currently
amd64, i386, ia64, pc98, and sparc64), these documents are generally available via the
Documentation menu during installation. Once the system is
installed, you can revisit this menu by re-running the
bsdinstall(8) utility.

Note:

It is extremely important to read the errata for any
given release before installing it, to learn about any
“late-breaking news” or post-release problems.
The errata file accompanying each release (most likely right
next to this file) is already out of date by definition, but
other copies are kept updated on the Internet and should be
consulted as the “current errata” for this
release. These other copies of the errata are located at
../../../../releases/ (as
well as any sites which keep up-to-date mirrors of this
location).

4.2.Â Manual Pages

As with almost all UNIXÂ® like operating systems, FreeBSD comes
with a set of on-line manual pages, accessed through the
man(1) command or through the hypertext manual
pages gateway on the FreeBSD Web site. In general, the
manual pages provide information on the different commands and
APIs available to the FreeBSD user.

In some cases, manual pages are written to give
information on particular topics. Notable examples of such
manual pages are tuning(7) (a guide to performance tuning),
security(7) (an introduction to FreeBSD security), and
style(9) (a style guide to kernel coding).

4.3.Â Books and Articles

Two highly-useful collections of FreeBSD-related information,
maintained by the FreeBSD Project,
are the FreeBSD Handbook and FreeBSD FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions document). On-line versions of the Handbook
and FAQ
are always available from the FreeBSD Documentation
page or its mirrors. If you install the
doc distribution set, you can use a Web
browser to read the Handbook and FAQ locally. In particular,
note that the Handbook contains a step-by-step guide to
installing FreeBSD.

A number of on-line books and articles, also maintained by
the FreeBSD Project, cover more-specialized, FreeBSD-related topics.
This material spans a wide range of topics, from effective use
of the mailing lists, to dual-booting FreeBSD with other
operating systems, to guidelines for new committers. Like the
Handbook and FAQ, these documents are available from the FreeBSD
Documentation Page or in the doc
distribution set.

A listing of other books and documents about FreeBSD can be
found in the bibliography
of the FreeBSD Handbook. Because of FreeBSD's strong UNIXÂ® heritage,
many other articles and books written for UNIXÂ® systems are
applicable as well, some of which are also listed in the
bibliography.

5.Â Acknowledgments

FreeBSD represents the cumulative work of many hundreds, if not
thousands, of individuals from around the world who have worked
countless hours to bring about this release. For a
complete list of FreeBSD developers and contributors, please see
“Contributors
to FreeBSD” on the FreeBSD Web site or any of its
mirrors.

Special thanks also go to the many thousands of FreeBSD users
and testers all over the world, without whom this release
simply would not have been possible.